Designing learning spaces to inspire adventure

It’s true that I’ve been incredibly fortunate to attend four conferences in the last three months, and as I dive into the fourth (Deeper Learning) at High Tech High, I am faced with the question of how best to share the information when I return to my home school.  People are innovating; how best do I use my exposure to these conferences and school visits to inspire my fellow teachers at Lamoille Union?  I think I may have stumbled upon the answer while listening to the amazing Eleanor Duckworth today.

“Telling people what to think is no way to get them to think it, too,” she reminded us.  That is, use the power of inquiry to encourage people to come upon their own realizations and lessons, and then the true learning happens.  When they come to the conclusions themselves, new pathways are truly formed in their brains and then change can happen.  I know; it’s perhaps a simple idea, but equally profound.

So to that end, I offer up these:

So here is my question: how might we redesign our learning spaces so they encourage wonder, inquiry, and a sense of adventure?  Subtlety has never been a strength of mine, so I’m not sure I am practicing Duckworth’s ideals as well as she might have intended, but I hope that these photos of High Tech High/High Tech Elementary, VIDA in Vista, and The Sycamore School in Malibu can start some conversation around learning spaces.  What do you think?  How does your school look different?  In what kind of learning space do you want to teach and learn?